I couldn’t remember if the gun in my hand was loaded.
That is where my mind went. Not to the jungle around me. Or the screaming in the distance. Not even to the hazmat suit I was wearing or the fact I was naked under it.
No. The first thing I noticed was the MP5 locked in my right hand, finger on the trigger—and thinking—well fuck, I wonder if this thing is loaded.
I couldn’t recall anything. My name. Where I was. How I was—you get the idea. Clean slate, except for the knowledge that this was an MP5, and it was loaded.
Possibly.
I was 50% sure of it.
In the distance, the screaming stopped. I got to my feet, and that’s when panic crept in. My heart picked up, gaining momentum with each beat. Faster and faster. I threw my back against a large tree.
The Wyrd Interlude:
We now witness a soul awakening without memory, encased in a hazmat suit and gripping a weapon they never chose. No gentle voices guide this unfortunate traveler. Fear and uncertainty drift through the leaves like restless ghosts. This—is wyrd fiction.
Overhead, the canopy of branches blotted out the sun, and with a small gust of wind the tops swayed and sunlight leaked through. Focus. I thought. Ignore the throbbing vein in your neck. The weightlessness in your chest. The numbness isn’t real. Ignore the panic.
The plastic clung to my flesh as I crept around the tree.
I felt a dampness on my right shoulder. Blood. I patted the trail up my neck to the base of my skull and then held a red stained yellow glove to my eyes.
Silence warped the world around me.
I could hear my heart. Slow.
Was this death?
Was I bleeding out?
An animal crossed my field of view. My eyes met those of a horse.
“Hello,” a voice said.
A knight in full armor spoke down to me. A longsword in his hand.
My eyes tracked the length of the blade. The blood was fresh.
Stepping back I raised my gun. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” The knight said.
“Don’t. Just don’t,” I blurted out. “Let me think—I will shoot you.”
“Shoot me?” He was confused. “Is that a bow? How curious.” He smiled.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Odd, I was going to ask you the same question.” He surveyed the jungle. “I have never seen a forest like this…”
“It’s a jungle,” I said.
“A jungle?” he asked. “So you do know where we are?”
“I don’t know where we are. I just know this is a jungle. The same way you would know a desert is a desert if you were in sand,” I said.
“You’re bleeding,” he pointed.
“I’m aware,” I said and pointed at his sword. “There’s blood on your blade. Any connection?”
“Oh, this—” he showcased the weapon. “No, this came from killing some hideous demons a few minutes ago. See if you look, this blood is black. Your blood is red.”
“Demons?” I asked. “You sure?”
“No,” he said. “But they were not of this world.”
“And are you of this world?” I asked.
“No m’lady, I don’t believe I am. Are you?”
“I don’t believe I am either.”
“—be still.” He moved his eyes the same way a dog does when they sense an animal, and he gently lowered the faceplate on his helmet.
From the jungle, a slow circle formed around us. Five towering figures, taller than the knight on horseback. They were impossible to make out clearly—their movement rolled in with shadow and light was extinguished as they crossed it. Like water hitting a flame.
The knight crept closer to me—“keep your head low—find a place to hide—and I will—”
The MP5 reverberated across the trees. The black figures cracked like glass and with each bullet, light seeped into their blurry black silhouettes and exploded outward until they all shattered and melted back into shadows.
I released my finger from the trigger.
The knight raised his faceplate. “I need to meet your blacksmith.”
I saw his face smile and he reminded me of my father.
The knight didn’t have a grey beard before, but it was there now. And deep lines were etched in every corner of his face. Just like Dad.
Dad.
I thought.
For a flicker of an instant, I glimpsed something else—rooms and machines, voices calling my name. As if I were two places at once, or slipping between worlds. Before I could hold that thought, I was hurtled away through the trees in a spiral and the knight fell to a pinpoint and I was again drowning in a dream.
I couldn’t breathe. I spun around in the room and saw one man—two—four—was it the same person?
Six.
I felt a dampness on my shoulder.
I touched the back of my skull.
“Berdy, try to calm down,” one of the men said. “We’re your friends.”
My bloody hand was shaking before my eyes.
“You’re going to be okay—”
Somewhere behind me, a machine beeped steadily, each tone trying to anchor me in this reality. I caught a faint chemical smell—sterile and sharp.
“—get the bleeding to stop!” someone yelled in a panic.
I could feel the plastic clinging to my skin. “I need to go back,” I said. And the room went quiet.
The blurry figures tried to steady me. “She’s coming around,” a gentle female voice said as they got me to sit.
“Get the gun out of her hand—”
“—she won’t let go.”
“I need to go back,” I said to the spinning room and silhouettes.
“Berdy, right now you need to breathe—hear my voice—”
“I need to go back!” I stood up and took aim.
The blurry figures froze. I was crying. “Why am I here!? Send me back! Why’d you do this!”
“Berdy, you’re not stable. Hear my voice, you know me.”
The MP5 reverberated across the room and the blurry figures cracked like glass and I saw the blinding light bleed through them and become swaying branches and I squinted with each flash of light until I forced my eyes shut.
Then, in the darkness, I heard the knight’s voice.
“So,” he said. “You’re back.”
And I felt calm.
The Wyrd Curtain:
Here, truth cracks like glass under stray bullets, and mercy chokes on the taste of blood and regret. As your eyes lift beyond the canopy and your heart weighs the cost of returning or refusing, recall that there are countless horizons unwatched, countless seeds unsown—and Wyrd Worlds yet await.